


Dear Stranger

by Star_Going_Supernova



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Angst, Diary/Journal, Gen, Happy Ending, Henry's Diary, Hopeful Ending, POV Original Character, POV Outsider, kudos if you get that reference, not anywhere in the 1900s, story primarily told through journal entries, takes place in current times, we're all stories in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 14:18:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13460031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: She opened it to the inside cover, where the name was scrawled. It matched the one on the headstone.Henry Ross.





	Dear Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> A Reminder to Myself: Future Star, if you’re reading this, you know what I mean by that. It’s your writing, your story, your imagination— love what you do, and don’t let anything stop you. It’s time for you to believe what your friends say. Have Henry’s love for your characters and Joey’s belief in your dreams. Say _”Watch me”_ to the impossible, and remember that kindness begets kindness. 
> 
> Future Star: you wrote this for a reason. Please, don’t ever ever forget that.

It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, with a gentle breeze that carried the scent of pastries from the bakery down the street. Marie never knew whether or not to be grateful for weather like this when she was visiting the cemetery. On the one hand, dreary weather never did much for her mood, but hating good things when in mourning seemed to be expected of her. 

She turned away from her parents’ shared headstone and started back down the winding gravel path.

By sheer luck, she glanced to her left as she passed a group of older markers, and at the base of one, she saw something that stood out against the weathered marble. 

It was a little book, a journal from the looks of it. She glanced around curiously, but the only other people in sight were a middle-aged couple with a teenager on the hill closer to the entrance, an older lady sitting on a bench in front of a large set of graves who looked to be feeding some birds, and a young man with his back against a large monument with a pencil in hand. 

Marie stepped off the path to stand in front of the headstone with the little book leaning against it. She knelt down and picked it up, turning the smooth, aged leather over in her hands. It was small enough to fit in a man’s pocket, and it was in the perfect state of tattered to be obviously well-loved without having been treated carelessly. 

She opened it to the inside cover, where the name was scrawled. It matched the one on the headstone.

Henry Ross. 

Unable to help herself, Marie flipped to the first page, a loose one that seemed to have been added separately. 

_Dear stranger, you hold my life in your hands. However this book has found its way to you, I beg you to take caution. The tale within these pages is perhaps not for the faint of heart. You will think my words to be false, nothing more than a well-planned story straight from my own imagination._

_They are not._

_What I am about to tell you is true. All of it. For the span of these pages, you are about to become me._

_— Henry_

Marie leaned back a bit, holding the journal away from her. She should put it down and walk away. That short greeting had left goosebumps along her arms. This was too strange. It had to be a prank or something. 

And yet… she didn’t. No, instead, she settled more comfortably on the bright green grass, warmed by the summer sun above her. Why not take just a peak?

**December 13, 1938**

_I finally ran out of pages in my last journal, so here we go again. This one’s still all stiff, but I’ll have it broken in before long. Not like I have much time to write these past few years, anyhow, what with the studio. But it’s still good to have a place to immortalize the important things, y’know?_

**January 7, 1939**

_This year’s Christmas special did well, though we almost missed the deadline. Hopefully that’ll teach the interns not to let their little prank wars affect the rest of us, because animators and a Sammy without reliable coffee can’t function properly. Once it was all over with, we could all have a laugh about it, but at the time, no one appreciated it. On the plus side, I’ve got an idea for a new episode._

**January 27, 1939**

_It’s Joey’s birthday, and starting yesterday, we're taking the week off to go celebrate at my parents’ house. We were able to stop by on Christmas Day, but because of the whole coffee debacle, we weren’t able to stay long, so this is sort of an apology. Things are calm enough around the studio that we can have a little break. Everyone else is taking the time to catch up on things they’ve gotten behind on. Plus, Joey could really use this vacation. I can tell just looking at him that he’s more tired than normal lately._

**February 2, 1939**

_I can’t breathe, I’m laughing so hard. Our first day back and this is what we showed up to. Joey’s gonna have a fun time figuring out who’s to blame for all this, but I think our priority should probably be finding the missing bunnies before the missing bobcat finds them first. And also the bobcat. That’s a priority, too._

**March 14, 1939**

_Joey’s lost his mind this time, I swear. He— what was that noise?_

There were a lot like that, Marie realized. Interspersing the more detailed ones were loads of little mentions of this _Joey_ , who seemed to be good friends with Henry Ross. Whatever this studio he talked about was, it sure sounded like fun. The people who worked there were always getting into ridiculous situations, and she was sure she understood Henry’s introduction letter, about it all being so close to a fabricated story.

But what about the bit about it not being for the faint of heart? Sure, some of Sammy’s threats were pretty graphic, but nothing freaky. 

Eventually, she caught on to the fact that the studio was one where cartoons were made. At some point, Henry started adding doodles to his journal entries, little characters pulling funny faces and silly poses. 

The rest of 1939 passed by in, according to Henry, a haze of animations and new characters and all sorts of antics that might’ve been better suited to the studio’s cartoon episodes rather than its employees. 

Page after page into 1940 Marie went, delightfully engrossed.

But then, one day, things changed. Late into 1940, Henry not having dated this entry, his handwriting went shaky as he wrote: _I was drafted today._

The next entry, after a blank page, was from August 1942. 

Marie looked up at the man’s headstone. In the silence of the cemetery, she whispered, “Thank you for your service.” 

That first entry after his return read: _I was shot. Three times, same leg. They sent me home in a wheelchair._

Two days later, he’d written an entire page of what she suspected were angry words, but they’d been scratched and scribbled out. 

A week after, and she smiled wondrously down at the page. 

_They said I’ll never walk again. That so, doc? Watch me. I didn’t say that to their faces, but now I wish I had. I’ll prove them wrong, just watch me._

Page after page from that moment on were filled with Henry’s determination to heal. He chronicled his panic attacks and nightmares and flashbacks, and Marie felt equally ashamed at having read through his personal struggle as she was awed at his strength. She couldn’t imagine going through what he did, much less working so hard to conquer it all. 

 _I can walk_ , he wrote. _I need a cane, but I can do it. It doesn’t feel real, almost, like I’ll wake up and find out that all the progress I’ve made was nothing but a dream._

When Henry victoriously described the joy he felt at finally being able to pack away his wheelchair once and for all, Marie actually laughed out loud, giddy on his success. 

Of course, the realization that she was still sitting in the cemetery hit her, and she sheepishly glanced around to see if she’d bothered anyone. The family was gone, but the elderly lady on the bench was looking at her funny. In the opposite direction, the man leaning against a headstone grinned when she caught his eye, and she resisted the urge to call out an apology. A young woman who hadn’t been there before glared at her, but she didn’t allow herself to be too bothered by it.

Marie went back to the little book, any previous thoughts of only taking a peak long gone in the face of how interesting the journal had turned out to be. 

Her excitement evaporated, however, when Henry told the story of how Joey sent him away.

_I knew he’d been avoiding me since I got back, but this was… this was unexpected. How could he have said those things? After all the good times. I didn’t think— I thought I was getting better. Was it my fault?_

Her anger at Joey flared even as Henry’s seemed to drain away. How could he? Why was Joey suddenly a dick after all those entries of how close they were, of how much fun they had? Something had to have changed, and Marie refused to believe that it was Henry. If he had been as sweet in real life as he seemed in his writing, then there was no way Joey could’ve just randomly turned his back on his best friend. 

The dates thinned out again, long stretches between them that left Marie hungry and curious for more. Slowly, bit by bit, she read as Henry built a new life for himself, as he gradually got over the hurt and anger, as he forged through all new sets of difficulties. 

When he finally wrote of how he was happy again, a different sort of happiness to be sure, but a good feeling nonetheless, she would’ve cheered if not for her location. 

But then things changed again, hours and years later, depending on your point of view. Over a decade after being cast out from his home at the studio, Henry wrote: _I got a letter today. It’s from Joey. I don’t know what to think_. 

And then, the next day: _I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m going. I probably shouldn’t, but it’s been so long and I just have to know._

“Noooo, Henry,” Marie whispered. “Don’t do it. He’s a dick and he doesn’t deserve you.”

But Henry went, and _that’s_ when Marie realized what Henry had meant by ‘not for the faint of heart.’

 _He killed them,_ Henry wrote with an obviously jittery hand. _He lured them back one by one and murdered them for experiments or something. Our employees, our friends, and Joey talked about them like meaningless sacrifices._

“Good golly,” Marie breathed. And that, it turned out, was only the beginning. Deep in the bowels of the studio, Henry had no way to differentiate days, and his chaotic writing reflected what Marie imagined his surroundings to be.

_Oh gosh. Oh gosh. I just— there was a toon, Edgar. I killed him. He tried to— he— I can’t—_

_Some of them don’t have legs, and they drag themselves towards me with their hands, moaning. What has Joey done? How is this possible?_

_There’s someone in here with me. There was music, and sometimes, I can hear doors closing in a different corridor. I’m in the music department, but I don’t remember it looking like this. It’s huge. There’s ink everywhere._

_There were others. I don’t know how to describe them. But they looked like they were hurting, covered in stitches and body parts that don’t belong._

_Sammy’s here. If he could even still be called Sammy. Was here— I don’t know. He hit my head and tried to sacrifice me or something. Kept calling me sheep. Everything’s a bit blurry. Might have a concussion. I got away while— I don’t know. I don’t know. It sounded like he was attacked, and I ran. I ran, and then_ **_he_ ** _showed up. It was Bendy, but it wasn’t. He was huge, off-model, there was ink everywhere. I don’t know what’s going on anymore. How did this happen?_

_I’m safer than I was before._

_Where am I?_

_I had to kill another toon. It’s so much harder, so much more painful, to take a life up close than from far away. My old nightmares have come back, only now they’re mixed in with what I’ve seen here._

_Maybe I should just go back upstairs… whatever Joey wants me for can’t possibly be worse than this._

_I found Susie._

_The legless ones are called Searchers apparently. What are they searching for?_

_Someone save me._

_There’s a version of Alice down here too. That’s— she’s what happened to Susie. She wants me to collect things for her. I’ve been avoiding Level 9 since I met her. As long as I stay out of the elevator, she can’t do anything to me, since she refuses to leave her sanctuary._

_You’ll never believe who I found today. Which reminds me— I don’t know how long I’ve been down here. There’s no way to tell time. I tried with some clocks I found, but none of them run at the same speed. Anyway, who I found. Boris. He’s on-model, and doesn’t seem to want me dead— but then, he can’t talk— so for all I know, he’s preparing to try and sacrifice me like Sammy did._

_Note to self: don’t joke about being sacrificed right before going to sleep._

_He has a safehouse. With a bathroom and a secure door and a stove for heating up this nasty bacon soup. I can finally recognize myself again, now that I’ve gotten all that grime off my face._

_I still can’t believe it. Boris is alive! It’s like I’ve only just realized it— my characters are alive! Not well, though. It has to hurt, being the way they are._

_We’re almost out of soup. I think I’ve been in the studio for two weeks or so. All I have to keep track is when I get tired and sleep for longer than a nap, but who knows how screwed up that’s become what with all the running and fighting and adrenaline._

_My leg hurts. Back home, it would’ve been a Cane Day, but I don’t have a cane here._

_Tomorrow, we’re leaving. I won’t be able to last much longer here, even if we do get more soup. I’m starting to notice a significant difference in my breathing. There are only a few vents this deep that actually work. I have to get out._

_Boris insists on coming with me._

_I don’t think I have a choice about helping this Susie-Alice anymore. There’s no way out but up. And she won’t let me use the lift freely unless I get her what she wants. Fine._

_This is crazy. It’s insane. That off-model Bendy is hunting me. Chasing me through the hallways, and I don’t want to know what’ll happen if he gets his hands on me. Death, or worse?_

_A Searcher just tried to force its way down my throat. I can still taste ink._

_These Little Miracle Stations shouldn’t work. Why do they work? What is it about them that prevents Bendy from getting you? How is this outhouse of a hiding place safe?_

_She wants me to break the Bendy cutouts. Alice is going to get me killed at this rate. I have the horrible suspicion that chopping these things up is only going to piss Bendy off more than I think he already is._

_I WAS RIGHT_

_Norman was here. He was… he was worse off than Sammy. Was, was, past tense, because I— he attacked me, and there was nowhere to hide. The sound he made when he died, it brought me to my knees. I killed one of my oldest friends today. How am I supposed to keep going…_

_I have to, for Boris’s sake if nothing else._

_Alice says she’s letting us go now. I’m worried, though. Someone who clones, experiments on, and tortures innocent toons probably can’t be trusted. I should know by now._

_Oh no. No! She’s dropping the_

Marie stared down at the page, eyes wide with a hand pressed tightly over her mouth. Turn the page, she told herself. Obviously, Henry had to have survived, since his journal had to have been found to be placed here. Unless it was all a story, like a logical person would think. 

Dang it, though, she didn’t want to be logical! She wanted to believe that Henry had really existed, that he had been as amazing as he sounded, that he wasn’t just a character in a story that was about to die from being dropped dozens of stories in an elevator.

She flipped the page.

_i_

_where_

_can’t see, can’t_

_hurts_

_alone. boris is is is gone_

_someone’s here_

_can’t remember, need to write it down_

_alice took boris_

_alice took him_

_help_

_i don’t know where i am_

_silent, it’s always silent_

_I think I’m getting better._

_It’s_ **_him_ ** _._

_Why?_

The next pages were torn and heavily stained with ink. Marie could only make out a few random words and phrases here and there.

_… found me…_

_Can I trust… no choice…_

_… hurt me… yet…_

_Boris… danger… like those clones._

_… don’t understand…_

_… friends? I don’t know._

_But… together. Or… die._

_… first conversation… my mind… thought it might scare…_

_It’s Joey’s fault… how Bendy was created… violent… other ink creatures._

_If I get out… help him. And… all of them. Boris…_

_… recovered enough… rescue Boris…_

And then, as quickly as the ruined pages started, they stopped. 

_We did it. All of it, just as I promised. It’s over. Please, don’t let this all be dream, because I think I’d go mad if it was. We made it out alive, we stopped Joey, Alice is— well, I’m assuming Bendy killed her— Boris is safe, and with a bit of work, all the others will hopefully stop hurting. We can do this._

_I look outside the window to my backyard where the toons are playing some days and wonder if it’s all real. Did I really survive all that nonsense? I’ve read through this journal several times now, and it doesn’t sound real, even to me— and I lived it! No one would ever believe me. Heck, I don’t even think I would believe me!_

_They’re safe. I have to remember that at times like this, when I wake up from the nightmares._

_Thanks, Joey. I don’t know if I mean that sarcastically or not. Because, yes, he murdered our friends and tried to get me to help him do more or something, and he hurt all these toons, and I’ll never forgive him for all of that. But if he hadn’t sent that letter to me, I never would’ve met all the toons. I wouldn’t be as happy as I am now. I hate him so much some days, and others, I wake up gasping because I dreamt that he never asked me to return to the studio_

_I think I have to remember that Joey wasn’t always that way. Once upon a time, he and I were best friends, as close as brothers. I don’t know what happened to him that changed him so much. I hope it wasn’t my fault, but I get the feeling it was. Yes, in the end, Joey was terrible. But that doesn’t discredit the good things he once did. I’m allowed to hate the man he became while being thankful for meeting the toons. Or at least, that’s my opinion on all that._

_Turns out the toons have similar thoughts. They hate Joey for what he did to them and the pain and fear he caused, but they’re grateful that he brought me to them. If I wasn’t so worried about people finding out about them, I’d say we should all go to a therapist._

_I’m getting old. I feel older than I am, though. My stint in the studio all those years ago— found out after escaping that I’d been in there nearly three months (apparently I spent longer recovering from the lift falling than I’d first thought)— probably didn’t do my health any favors. I still have breathing problems now and then, and joints and such ache far easier than they used to._

_Something’s wrong with me. Things that shouldn’t hurt do._

_Doctor took x-rays because I kept complaining about pain. I’ve been going to this man for decades now, and he’s never lost his composure so much as he did when he saw my results. That drop did more damage than Bendy and I had thought. Why now? Why at all?_

_Surgery is terrible._

_I’m not getting better._

_Have to make a choice: be bedridden, or break out that horrible wheelchair again._

_Couldn’t stand the look on the toons’ faces. Wheelchair it is._

_Started coughing up blood. Things have gone from bad to worse._

_The doctors say I need to stay in the hospital full time now. Nothing I can do about it this time, I’m afraid. Some impossibilities are too big for even me to beat. That being said, I refused. My toons can’t be with me in the hospital, and that’s more important to me than a few extra weeks of living all by my lonesome._

_Getting harder to wake up. Harder to stay awake. I had a good run, a good life. I’ll be missed, and that’s what hurts the most. That they’ll be left alone._

_Bendy was asking questions last night. Don’t remember them._

_I’ll miss you all, you silly toons. Don’t stop smiling and being happy just because I’m not around anymore._

_Promise me. Please._

**_If you’re reading this, hello. You might notice that the writing is different. Henry is no longer strong enough to write for himself. I’m doing it for him._ **

**_He wants me to tell you to remember that kindness begets kindness. Says it’s important._ **

**_He wants me to tell you that he hopes you enjoyed all this, this look into his life. He hopes you believe in it, for as crazy as it sounds._ **

**_And if you’re sitting there saying, “But it can’t have been real! Bringing cartoon characters to life is impossible!” then leave this journal for someone else to find, someone who might appreciate it better. Everything is believed to be impossible before it’s done. There's a first time for everything, and is it so hard to imagine that this was one such first?_ **

**_I don’t care if you never think about us again. I really don’t. What Henry wanted you to get out of this is a mystery to me, but if you really only take one thing away from this, it’s don’t be like Joey. For the love of everything good in this world, don’t murder people. It’s a mistake, trust me, it really is._ **

**_Henry says he doesn’t have much longer—_ **

And that’s where it ended. Marie’s arms went limp and her hands, sill holding the book, fell into her lap. Tears glistened in her eyes as she stared open-mouthed at the headstone in front of her. Henry hadn’t been all that good about dating his entries after escaping the studio, but according to the marker, he’d lived for a good two decades with his toons. 

He’d been dead for almost half a century. Were the toons even still alive? Had something happened to them, leading to Henry’s journal being put here by someone who didn’t care about it? 

The last few pages were blank, and it made something deep inside Marie ache to know that he’d been so close to filling his little journal up. She flipped through entire thing, front to back, watching the inked words flash by. 

It stopped on the back cover. There was more writing, this entry dated.

Marie’s eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. 

The date was today’s. The only words written on the page were: _It’s time I let my story go. It’s in your hands now, dear stranger. What you do with it is your decision. Thank you, for listening._

Marie slowly stood, faintly trembling. She turned in a slow circle, but she was alone in the cemetery. Everyone else had left in the hours she’d sat there, engrossed in an impossible story. The old woman on the bench, the young one who’d glared at her, the man who’d been leaning on a gravestone— 

There was a piece of paper tapped to the marker where he’d been. 

Was today a day for stories and impossible coincidences? 

Feeling like she was in a dream, Marie carefully walked over to it. The paper was thick, the type found in quality sketchbooks. There was a drawing on it in pencil.

It was her, sitting on the ground by Henry’s headstone with the journal in her hands, a smile on her face. 

 _Dear stranger,_ it said in an arc around her image, _thank you for believing._

“No,” she said, a grin splitting her face at the impossible words, as the tears finally overflowed in little wondrous drops. “It’s not _possible_.” 

She flipped it over. On the back was a cartoony illustration of a man surrounded by his toons, beaming up at her from the page. Split between the space above and below the sketch, it said, _And I hope we shall meet again._

Leaves rustled in the nearby trees, out of time with the wind. The gate, hidden beyond the far hill, creaked— open or closed, there was no way to tell. Footsteps, perhaps, but on the gravel path or on the sidewalk past the fence? Laughter, echoing, alive. 

Marie tucked the drawing against the back cover, snapped the little book closed, and bit her lip. And then, she smiled. 

She hoped so, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Until we meet again, dear stranger, for the world is full of wondrous things.


End file.
